By Week 10, the thought of Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley squaring off against the team he coached for most of last year, the Kansas City Chiefs, would be more a novelty to sell a Monday Night Football game.

Expect it to happen anyway, though.

The Chiefs are one of the more intriguing teams in the league this year. Inconsistency plagued them even with being plagued by injuries to, among others, QB Matt Cassel, RB Jamal Charles, FS Eric Berry and TE Tony Moeaki. They still managed to win seven games under Haley and his mid-season replacement, Romeo Crennel, who’s now the head coach.

Chiefs Improvements

Kansas City will improve its roster simply by the lack of injuries from last season. Charles and Moeaki proved quickly in their time in the league they will be at worst solid offensive players and Berry showed enough to see him as one of the better safeties in the coming years. Even with that, their grab of RT Eric Winston was a huge pick-up as they had targeted a tackle with the No. 11 overall pick in the draft. Instead, they were able to snare potential-laden NT Dontari Poe, and Winston’s addition immediately makes their offensive line better.

Chiefs Losses

Letting CB Brandon Carr go may end up being more risk than reward, but they’ve been building up a younger secondary, and there just simply may not have been room for everyone.

The loss of OT Barry Richardson likely won’t be met with tears by Chiefs faithful, and Winston certainly removes any concern about it. Outside of that, the Chiefs look primed to return closer to their 10-6 season of 2010 rather than their 7-9 mark of 2011. They’ll need it, considering the improvement across the AFC West, which, for a change, looks to maybe be one of the stronger divisions in the game.